Unintentional Road Trip
by doctoring
Summary: While on his way to a conference to present his research, Peter finds out he has a stowaway in his car. Guess Wade's going to make this boring academic trip into a road trip. / A fic written for Writer's Month. Trope Prompt: road trip


Peter Parker is on his way to a conference to present his research.

He _hates_ doing this. He's not the biggest fan of publics speaking, but it's a requirement for his graduate degree to present at a major conference, so he's getting it done this summer.

But this time, it's especially worse. Since no one else at NYU is going to this conference, and since he can't afford a plane ticket on his graduate student income, he's having to drive all the way to Washington D.C. by himself.

He leaves early because of the morning check-in and luncheon at the conference, the sky still mostly dark. He drives about a half hour, struggling against nodding off. He's turned up the volume to his podcast, but it does nothing for him.

He decides to munch on something for energy and looks down at his center console. He frowns. There was only an energy drink sitting in one of the cupholders.

_Shit. Must have left the snackage at home._

He drives for another five minutes, deep in thought.

_I could have sworn I had chips here not too long again. I must have been more tired than I thought._

He mentally shrugs it off and take the next exit, pulling into a gas station.

As he shifts the car into park, he knocks his arm into someone's hand.

"Sorry."

"No worries," He hears from the backseat as he cuts the engine.

Peter's about to step out when he sits back in the car, frozen in place. _How did my Spidey-senses not pick up on this!?_

He looks down at the center console and sees the hand. It creeps forward, searching for his energy drink, and takes it.

Peter would recognize that hand anywhere.

"THE FUCK WADE!?"

He jerks around, and starts pulling at his travel blanket, luggage, and research poster, bending it in the process. Wade starts flailing.

"I'm sorry! Was this yours?"

"Yes, I mean-"

"I'll go buy you a new one!" Wade said, reaching for the door handle and tumbling out of the backseat ungracefully.

"THAT'S NOT THE PROBLEM!"

Peter grabs ahold of Wade and throws him back into the backseat of the car. Peter gets back into the front seat, slamming the door. He twists in his seat to get a better look at Wade.

"Just what the hell do you think you're doing!?"

"I could ask you the same thing!"

"What you do mean!?" Peter said, almost shouting at this point.

"You're taking a vacation without me!" Wade crosses his arms and pouts.

Peter give him a blank stare for quite some time, before asking him to explain himself, in detail this time.

Turns out, Wade had found out about Peter driving to Washington D.C., and thought Peter was going on vacation and didn't want Wade to tag along.

So, naturally, he tagged along.

Peter ensures him it's strictly academic. "It's not a vacation, and I certainly won't be having fun. I'll be busy pretty much the whole time there."

"So, what you're saying is that I'll be left to my own devices while in DC, but at least we can hang and stuff while on the actual road trip?"

Peter looks at him confused until Wade raises his arms and makes a show of tapping the face of his Star Wars watch.

_Shit. I really don't have the time to take him back, and if I just leave him here to find his own way back, I won't hear the end of it. Do I really have no other option but to take him with me?_

Peter thinks about it for a minute, trying to weigh which would be worse: Leaving Wade to wander DC unsupervised, probably having to rescue him from secret service at some point, or trying to sneak him into the conference, where he can keep an eye on him the whole time, except the most important time: when he's presenting.

"Petey, you okay?"

Peter grabs Wade's wrist and checks the time.

_Probably an issue I need to figure out while still on the road._

"Fine, you can come with."

Wade squeals before crawling ungracefully into the front seat. He then pulls out a velcro wallet with Pikachu on the front. Peter thinks back to a time where seeing such a wallet and watch would have concerned him, but now, it's just typical Wade.

Wade hands him a twenty and says, "That's for what I ate… and to cover the cost of some ginger ale and Doritos."

Peter sighs heavily. "What flavor?"

"SURPRISE ME! BUT NOT COOL RANCH."

A few minutes later, Peter gets back to the car with an armful of snacks. He tosses them unceremoniously unto Wade's lap, laughing at bit to himself when Wade complains about the soda bottles hitting him.

"I'm serious, Petey. You need to be careful with that kind of stuff. You can scar someone that way."

Wade then looks down at his arm and fakes a scream. "SEE!?" He shouts, waving his arm at Peter.

Peter ignores him. Instead, he takes his phone off the dash mount and tosses it at Wade. "If we're turning this into a road trip, you're in charge of navigation, snack prep, and music."

Peter took a big gulp of his energy drink, then started the car. "Where to now, Wade?"

Peter did find it fun to talk with Wade, finding it easier to stay awake. And he was surprised Wade complied to all his demands, well, just the one, to open the beef jerky. If only Wade didn't insist on listening to the entire Mamma Mia soundtrack, while singing along, starting over songs when he realized he had started talking and didn't sing the song the whole way through. Otherwise, it was a pretty normal entertaining road trip.

They arrived in DC in what Peter felt like was half the time. When he parked outside the hotel where he'll be staying, he actually felt a bit sad to end the trip.

"Do you think they got like tour maps of this place, like with Hollywood and stuff?"

Peter watches as Wade looks around. He considers his option one last time before looking in the backseat.

"Hey, did you bring a bag or something?"

"Yeah, there," Wade points to one of Peter's own bags.

"Did you steal one of my duffle bags?"

"Harsh, man. If you're going to act like this about the bag, don't ask what's inside. You don't want to know."

Peter snatches the bag and tears it open, just to find his own clothes insides, some of which still had the hangers.

Wade shrugs. "I didn't have time to pack so I just had to wing it."

Peter sighs heavily. "I think it might be best if you stay with me during the conference."

"But we're in DC! It's not New York! I never get to leave New York unless I have to kill someone."

"WHICH IS EXACTLY WHY I NEED YOU TO STAY WITH ME."

They dropped the stuff off into the hotel room, Peter purposely ignoring Wade's comment about the single bed. Peter made him get dressed in the best of the commandeered clothes. When both men were suited up, they walked two blocks to the conference.

As Peter checked in, he tried to argue with the people at the conference table that Wade was allowed to be there. He claimed he did say he would have a guest with him. He overheard one of the check-in personnel say it seemed a little fishy, which he had to agree. Peter's suit didn't fit Wade very well. They were way too tight and rode up a bit on the arms and legs.

Wade finally butted in. As he gestured to his face, he said, "Clearly, it's been a bit rough for me, recently. So, we might have slipped up and forgot to mention the plus one after the incident, but-"

The lady at the desk hastily made a name tag for Wade, pity clear in her expression.

As they walked away, Peter gave Wade a stern glare.

"Hey… nothing I said was a lie! You obviously forgot to mention you had a plus one, just like you obviously forgot to invite your plus one… and she doesn't need to know how long after 'the incident' this is."

Peter let it slide, just happy that he wouldn't see Wade on the news later in a report about a man streaking through the White House or something akin to that level of stupidity.

Peter went on to regret this later, when Wade caused a domino effect of fallen poster displays, ending with an upturn refreshments table. But Peter had to admit, that kind of drama at a conference is much more manageable than a national security risk.

However, the conference personnel didn't see it that way, and not-so-kindly asked him not to show up tomorrow for the second half of the conference.

Wade kept promising that he would behave and stay in the hotel room the next day, but as they toured the city that evening, Peter realized that he had no real point in going to the conference the next day either.

_I've already presented, so I've accomplished what I came here to do. I can just go home now… but I already booked the room, and Wade did seem excited about going on a road trip…_

When they finally went back to the hotel for the night, Peter decided to strike a bargain with him.

"If you don't touch me at all tonight while we're in bed, we can leave first thing in the morning, and hit any corny tourist attraction you want on the way home."

Wade gasped. "Really!? Because I'm going to Atlas Obscura the mess out of our route tomorrow."

As Wade searches for kitschy stops on his phone, he says, "I'm just curious… what would happen if I were to touch you tonight?"

"I'd kick you out of bed and force you to find your own way home," Peter says flatly. "Don't try it."

"No, no, I wasn't gonna… not anymore at least."

However, in the morning, Peter wakes up to find Wade's arm around him. He rolls over to scold him, waking up Wade in the process.

Wade smiles softly at him, then his eyes shot open in terror. "I SWEAR I DIDN'T MEAN TO. MY ARM WAS BEING SELFISH. IT WASN'T ME."

"Wade, I-"

"I SWEAR! PLEASE DON'T TAKE AWAY THE WEIRD TOURIST STOPS! I FOUND A LOT IN PHILLY WE COULD GO TO."

"Wade. Chill. I believe you. And yes, we can go to Philly."

Peter has never seen Wade move as fast as he did packing up all their luggage. Maybe that one time he almost missed the taco truck, but it's too close to call.

Along the way back to New York, the boys stopped in Philly for a few tourist attractions and for lunch. That afternoon, they hit a few weird places in New Jersey. All in all, Peter found himself having a good time, realizing that having Wade along on his conference trip wasn't so bad. Even if Wade got overexcited about everything he saw and wanted pictures of everything.

It was already quite dark when Peter said they should just finish the trek home, no more stops. Wade didn't complain but did make a comment about doing this again sometime, but with clothes that fit better.

"And whose fault is that!?"

"Yours because I would have had more time to pack if you had told me we were going on vacation sooner… or just told me at all."

Peter just rolled his eyes.

As they neared Wade's apartment, Peter slowed a bit, so they can finish screeching along to 'Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!'

Wade started to get out with his bag, before realizing it was actually Peter's bag.

"Wait, no, that's yours… I just have…" Wade pats himself down and pulls out his phone and keys. "Yep, that's it. See you on patrol tomorrow, Petey?"

"Yeah, I'll be there."

As he watched Wade enter his apartment, making sure he made it there safely without any sneak attacks or accidents on the tetanus hazard surrounding his complex, Peter counted the weeks until his next big break from school.

_Yeah, I'll see if he's free then. Maybe going on a legit, planned-out road trip with Wade wouldn't be too bad._

.the end.


End file.
